The Science of Santeria: Do a Little Happy Trance

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Tis the season of the dead: from Halloween to All Saint's Day,
when traditionally Christian societies venerate those who have
passed on. But for practitioners of the Afro-Cuban philosophy of
Santería, the line between the dead and living knows no season;
it's almost always a shadowy one.

Afro-Cuban emigre Philbert Armenteros, founder of the Miami band
Los Herederos (The Inheritors), says his music can channel
important messages from the gods of his African ancestors.

"It puts (listeners) in a different dimension, one that allows
them to experience cleansing, purity and inner peace," Armenteros
told Discovery News.

Armenteros literally means a different dimension. When he drums
and chants in a certain sequence, some of his listeners are
lulled into a trance.

Those who practice Santería say the trance opens the doors to
spirit possession, and the gods, or orishas, briefly
enter the trance-induced body and use it for earthly advising.

"It does happen at concerts, but the full effect is more likely
when all the right elements are present in a ceremony," said
Armenteros, explaining that more authentic trance experiences
would include all the tools, such as a spiritual leader, i.e. a
babalawo, or a Santero, and offerings.

Santería, also called Regla de Ocha, is a slimmed-down
system of beliefs that came from the Yoruba people, in what is
now Nigeria.

It is considered one of the most African of all Afro-American
religious blends. Other popular examples include Haitian Vodou
and Brazilian Candomblé. Each evolved within the confines of
slavery in French, Spanish and Portuguese colonies.

Forced to convert to Catholicism. slaves soon noticed that many
Catholic saints resembled their own ancestral gods. For example,
Santería, Vodou, and Candomble all associate Saint Barbara, the
patron saint of artillery, with Chango or Shango, the god of
thunder. Today, tens of thousands of people practice these
blends.

Social scientists say that trances, a behavior common to all
kinds of world religions, are biological, but also caused by
learned behavior.

According to Dr. Peter Naish, a senior lecturer in cognitive
psychology at the Open University in the U.K., asymmetrical
brains -- those whose two hemispheres process information at
disproportionate speeds -- are more capable of playing the
hallucinatory tricks indicative of hypnosis and trance.

In his study "Hypnosis and Hemispheric Asymmetry," published in
the Jan. 2010 edition of the journal Consciousness and
Cognition, he noted higher hypnotic susceptibility in those
who, before being hypnotized, processed information much more
quickly in the left brain hemisphere than the right. But during
hypnosis, the situation flipped and the right became faster. No
one knows whether they are born with that wiring or if it comes
through experience.

"Clearly, highly hypnotizable brains are different," said Naish,
"but what you do once you are hypnotized is largely down to
expectation. If you have the assumption that you visit the spirit
world and can’t remember what you did there, then I dare say
that’s what you do."

Erika Bourguignon, a leading expert on Afro-Caribbean spirit
possession and professor emerita at Ohio State University, says
that altered state is characterized in Afro-Caribbean religions
by shaking, staring and the absence of facial expression.

"We know altered states are general human capacities. There are
dreams, and dreams are a kind of altered state," Bourguinon said.

All this scientific discussion is fine with the Santería
practitioners because not everybody should fall into a
trance, noted Cuban anthropologist and television producer Fermin
Fleites.

"Those who don't are sometimes chosen as babalawos," he
said, explaining that these spiritual leaders help to interpret
what a trance-induced person won't remember saying.

For Joseph M. Murphy, a theology professor at Georgetown
University in Washington, D.C., these elements are all part of
the community spirit of the practice.

"It's quite lovely to see how people form a protective ring
around the person to settle the spirit. The person won’t look
like themselves and they'll talk with a lot of authority and
presence of the spirit that takes them," Murphy said.

Both followers of Santería and social scientists insist that none
of the manifestations of African spirituality are as macabre as
the media has often portrayed.

Murphy says the stereotypes probably stem from Vodou ceremonies
that preceded the 1791 Haitian Revolution to overthrow the
French. "It scared the living daylights out of slave holders in
the West," he said.

It's true that practitioners of Santería, Vodou, Candomblé, and a
few other similar Afro-American religions perform animal
sacrifices and cast spells, but all are advised not to do
anything that could have negative repercussions.

"All these religions involve a moral code, an idea of what the
spirits will punish. But there's also the concept of the good
life, a respect for authority, elders, and tradition," said
Bourguinon.

Protection from evil is also part of the faith, explained Renee
Chavez, a Miami-based Santería practitioner and choreographer of
Afro-Indigenous dance.

"Unless you allow something, it cannot happen. That's why the
trance is one of the most important aspects of Santería," she
said, explaining that if you're biologically prone to having a
trance, you and your community are in for quite an experience.
"You're allowing yourself to be enraptured by the song and the
music, which allows you to be your most high self ... a vessel
for getting messages to other people."